Tempting Fate
masterlist
content: whumper turned whumpee, lady whump, alcohol, past trauma, noncon mention, self-destructive behaviour, emeto
Things went on like that for a while. Every week, Rosa drove down to the prison to talk. Every week, Vivienne dutifully tried to appear more like a changed human instead of the monster she lived in Rosa’s mind as. Some weeks she looked better, some weeks she looked like she’d stepped out of a crypt. She never once begged Rosa again to get her out of the program.
Months went by. Seasons changed. Before long, Rosa was staring at her calendar wide-eyed and shaking. The yearly visit from Vivienne and Christopher was coming up. Had she really stalled for so long? And was that why Vivienne had been so antsy the last few times they’d spoken?
She couldn’t think about it. She tore the calendar off the wall and threw it in the trash, no matter how cute the little doggies on the pages were.
She went out and bought a bottle of vodka, something she hadn’t done in ages. She downed half of it and waited, waited for whatever it was that vodka would do to fix the situation. Maybe it’d give her divine inspiration. Maybe she would suddenly see clearly.
She turned on the music and danced, turned the volume up so high that she couldn’t hear her own thoughts anymore. Everything was fine, and she wasn’t meant to choose between the safety of Vivienne and her own.
“Fuck everything!” she yelled into the ether. “Fuck rehab! Fuck the prison! Fuck Vivienne! Definitely fuck Christopher!”
She spun round and round in the middle of her living room, exacerbating how dizzy she already felt from the booze. She quickly became too nauseous to stand, and she had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. It was fine. Everything was fine.
“Vivienne,” she said to the bathroom wall, “I forgive you. Be free, like a bird. I know you have no place to stay, but you said it yourself: you’d rather be out on the street than in prison. So be free! I forgive you! I forgive you for beating me senseless, breaking my nose, and forever altering my face! I forgive you for the chronic pain in my ankle! I forgive you! How hard can it be? I’m certainly not going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder!”
She threw up again. She dragged herself into bed without showering or even brushing her teeth, too exhausted to care.
She didn’t call into work the next day to let them know she wasn’t coming. She didn’t call into work the day after that either, when instead of catching the bus she spent her morning in a dark room, all alone, curled up under two blankets.
‘You’re fired’, read the text on the afternoon of the third day. How many more were left until the visit? She took the calendar out of the trash to check — just two more days before judgment. She checked the cupboard as well — she still had her half a bottle of vodka.
It all came down to her. She could say no again. She held Vivienne’s destiny in the palm of her hand, and she could’ve crushed it between her fingers if she so desired.
On the evening before the fateful day, she went out to a bar. It was like flipping a coin, at least in her head. If something bad happened, if she got kidnapped again, then she wouldn’t be home to answer the door the next day. If everything went fine, she would forgive Vivienne.
She downed enough alcohol in the first few minutes not to have a panic attack, then went to dance and rub up against strangers. Tempting fate was so fun when she was drunk; she even left her drinks unattended several times before downing them one after the other, just waiting for her limbs to go numb and brain to go foggier than it already was.
She stumbled out of the bar not long after midnight. She threw up on the pavement, making the partygoers take the longer route into the club. She called a cab and waited for the driver to take a wrong turn and bring her to some desolate area to rape her, maybe even kill her afterwards.
But nothing happened. She got home safe and sound. Was Vivienne really the only person out there who wished ill on her?
“But she’s changed,” she slurred as she locked the door after herself. Then she changed her mind and unlocked it. If she wanted to tempt fate, she was going to go all the way. “She’s changed, she would never do that again…”
She kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto her bed in her night-out clothes, rubbing her face against the cold bed sheets.
If nothing bad happened by tomorrow morning, she was going to forgive.
—
Rosa woke up to the sun shining in her face through blinds she forgot to close. She groaned and immediately felt her stomach lurch; she rushed to the bathroom and threw up the remainder of the alcohol from yesterday.
She changed into normal clothes and grabbed the remaining bottle of vodka, unscrewing the cap and taking a swig. Nobody had broken into her house and murdered her, and she knew what that meant: she was going to forgive, and she couldn’t do it sober.
Plus, what better way to cure a hangover than to just get drunk again?
She was in the middle of singing Starring Role by Marina and the Diamonds when the doorbell rang. She tried to ignore the way her hand shook as she reached for the door handle.
“Good afternoon, Rosa,” Christopher said with that annoyingly neutral smile of his. That fake smile. That smile that told her he had no actual compassion in that gross little heart of his. The music was still blaring from the living room.
“Are you alright?” Vivienne asked softly.
“Better than ever,” Rosa said. “And guess what? I know why you’re here, and I don’t need to hear the shtick. I forgive you.”
Christopher furrowed his brows. “You’re drunk.”
“And you’re a piece of shit,” Rosa shot back. “What? Can I not forgive when I’m drunk? Is that a new rule you just made up on the spot to torture Vivienne further? Yeah, ‘cuz I know about all of it. Not from Vivienne — she’s scared out of her mind to tell me anything. But I’m not stupid. You know, I went to visit her every single week for the past year. And I have fucking eyes.”
“If you think I was torturing her, you must have some guilty conscience about waiting until now,” Christopher said calmly. “Unless you don’t really believe that.”
“You go take care of your conscience, I take care of mine.”
Vivienne’s eyes were darting between the two of them. “Does it count? Does her forgiveness count? I completed all the other terms of the program. Does it count? Am I out?”
Christopher turned to her with the same smile. “No,” he said simply. “She’s not in her right mind.”
“What the fuck?” Rosa snapped. “It fucking counts! You just made that up! You never told me there was a rule like that!”
“We’ll come back next year.”
“No!” Vivienne said with tears in her eyes. “But she forgave! She forgave me!”
“If she wants to schedule a meet-up later, when she’s capable of consenting to letting you out of prison, she’s free to do that.”
“I will fucking kill you!” Rosa shouted. “You hear me? I will kill you!”
Christopher put a hand on Vivienne’s shoulder, and Rosa wanted to cut it off then and there. “Come on, Vivienne. We’ll try again next year.”
As she watched them go back to the car, Rosa broke down into tears. “I forgive you!” she yelled after them. “I fucking forgive you, Vivienne! I’ll get you out of there!”
Vivienne gave her one last, teary look as they drove off, and Rosa punched the door frame in pure anger, again and again and again.
“Fucking goddammit!” she screamed. “I can’t do it sober! I can’t!”
She slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, slowly sliding down until she was sitting with her knees pulled up against her chest. She cried herself to sleep there, on the welcome mat.
~
@whumpsday @100percentwhump
